Theos-Talk Archives (January 2007 Message tt00378)

4 of 7 - Inner Self


    [In the original "Method" is chap. IV, 
not chap. III]


III. "MENTAL ILLNESS"


   You have to have some form of work.  I 
could say universally that all the long-term 
patients I knew in mental institutions were 
there largely because, for some reason or 
another, they missed the time to plug 
themselves into the work-a-day world, to 
find their place.  Most were brow-beaten so 
badly by their surroundings that they never 
had a chance to get up off the floor.  If this 
goes on long enough, it becomes a habit 
pattern.  They learn to dodge themselves 
and the things around them by going 
internally.  'Not in the sense of insight, but 
in the sense of withdrawal.  They go into a 
state you and I would call "numbness."  
When something traumatic occurs you can 
go numb in reaction to it.  It is like when a 
fuse blows.  It's too much to handle.  You 
have to back up and take it a piece at a 
time.  If things are too overwhelming, you 
go numb.  If you can't stand the numbness, 
you go into a rage.


   What they do is that their mind recycles 
on very short patterns, at least in some.  
They think about very little things in circles.  
The thing it effectively does is keep their 
attention span down to zero.  If the 
attention span is kept down, you never 
have enough clearness to be aware of the 
pain.  The mind does this as a protection 
mechanism.  When somebody is forced 
into this pattern just after puberty, which is 
when all hell breaks loose, for any period of 
time over a year, then there is no changing 
it during their lifetime.  It can't be done.  I 
am lucky to have had the strange set of 
experiences that permitted me to become 
insightful instead of "circular."  This type of 
circular thinker is a very small percentage 
of the population even in institutions.


   "Defenses" aren't actually defenses, 
they're offences.  Your defenses are you 
resisting the idea that you are sick.  When 
you go through the full blown emotional 
experience of realizing that you are sick, 
guess what will happen.  You will fight the 
thing right down to a stop, a death, an ego 
death.  When it's over, you will no longer be 
sick.  Sickness is about the emotional 
response to the realization of sickness.  
What is unusual about me is that I went 
through ego death when I was thirteen, and 
that was why I could study madness.  The 
way out is through the middle, the only way 
out.  I've been crazy, but I know everything 
there is to know about it.  The craziest are 
those that are running away from it.


   Everytime you deal with a deflated ego, 
you always find that the child part of you is 
behind it.  Roughly speaking, the way it 
goes is...  You may be driving down the 
road and you're thinking... I assume you 
accept the fact that you discover what you 
are thinking and darn near never decide 
what you're thinking, which is the fix we are 
all stuck with.  You notice you're bent out of 
shape about something, but can't quite put 
your finger on what it is.  You might be 
thinking about why you're driving an old 
junker instead of a new Cavalier, and on, 
and on.


   You have to start by indentifying what is 
causing the problem in the clearest 
concepts possible, and let your thoughts 
run before you can find what is behind 
them.  All of anxiety, shame, guilt and fear 
are generally wrapped up in the area of 
self-rejection.  When some part of you is 
pounding at you, it's because it isn't getting 
something.  When you can learn how to 
give it what it needs, it shuts up, whether it 
is the "child," the "adult," or the "engineer"-
moderator part of you between the two.  
This is three different people.  The key to 
the whole thing is tied in the hope that if 
you can find out what the part of you is 
really after, you can put it to rest.


   When you get into childish, blind 
emotions, you have to go into them and 
find out what is behind them.  When, on the 
other hand, it is the ego that is agitated, it's 
because you have not let the process of 
imagining run far enough ahead.  In other 
words, the ego part of comprehension 
operates on the basis of images of where 
you want to go.  When your ego starts 
hammering you, it's because you're not 
paying attention to what it is trying to give 
you as input in the process of letting your 
imagination run far enough to say that "this 
is what you want."  It wants you to reach for 
this. It's hammering you because its not 
getting its point across.


   The more effective you become at being 
the "engineer," the more that's the person 
you become.  That's the identity you 
develop.  The engineer becomes the 
central ego.  You're in the process of 
becoming a person out of the three that 
would never have been there without the 
effort.  You become an entirely different 
person.  Eventually this third self becomes 
the only person that remains.  The other 
two selves just become aspects of the 
central engineer.


   The way it starts with everyone is that 
they stumble into the bad side of internal 
experience.  You never stumble into the 
good side of internal experience.  Nobody 
does.  I never heard of a case.  It always 
starts out with the nightmares getting you, 
and that forces you to do something about 
it.  After years of sweating blood, you get to 
the point where you start working your way 
out of the mire.  Then comes the good time, 
but only later.  In the last analysis, some 
variation of inner sickness is the human 
condition for the reason that we have not 
yet learned enough to not have it be so.  
The paradise mankind is looking for lies in 
the direction of knowing enough about the 
psyche to raise children so that they never 
have to be sick.  Children have to be raised 
to have an inner life.


   People will die before they admit that they 
have an inner problem.  So long as any part 
of you is that strongly denying a problem, 
you can see why they say schiz-ophrenia - 
two persons.  One part of you knows as 
well as it knows anything that something is 
seriously wrong.  The other part of you is 
saying "I am never going to cast myself with 
the outcastes."  It's two egos fighting.


   One ego says you're sick, that something 
is wrong.  The other claims it's not true.  
You can never let go of the ego that knows 
something is wrong.  You can never 
achieve it.  You can let go of the one but 
you can't let go of the other.  If you want to 
bleed it down, just let the words "I'm a 
freak, a mental case" play over and over in 
your mind.  All the aberrations come in 
when the energies of the two egos, the one 
that says you're OK and the one that says 
you're not, collide.


   All mental illness is the result of 
loneliness.  Freud makes the remark 
somewhere that mental illness exhibits 
itself when the person first experiences the 
depths of loneliness.  This is true no matter 
what the age.  That's when it starts.  If you 
are true to yourself, you will be abandoned, 
and you will do anything to avoid 
abandoment - which is the whole crux of 
the internal argument.  The reason I got so 
violently sick when I was young was 
because I realized how wrong everybody's 
life was.  If I'd have been able to go along 
with all their BS, I'd have never been sick.


   We are gregarious by nature and the 
minute we start to feel separated, we are in 
trouble.  This is because of the habit built 
into us of blaming ourselves instead of 
others.  Seeing through this habit was the 
big difference for me.  When I was driven 
crazy, I knew it was others that did it.  I 
fought with the instinct to blame myself and 
said to myself that I would not buy it, that 
they caused the condition and not me, that 
they were responsible and not me.  That 
was why I was such an oddball among the 
mentally ill.  The mentally ill go around all 
day smearing feces on their face and the 
like, and doing everything they can that is 
self-demeaning.  Their behavior is 
symbolic.  In one form or another they are 
saying to the world "Look what you did to 
me!", but they do not go through the 
consciousness of it.  Everything they do 
speaks to the issue of "Look what you've 
done to me."  It is easier for them to blame 
themselves than to face the abyss of 
isolation.


   When two people have an argument, it is 
similar to what occurs when two parts of the 
self are arguing.  When two people come to 
a resolution, how is it possible?  There is 
something in it for both sides.  That's the 
only way resolution is possible.  People 
argue about the fact that they want "theirs" 
everytime.


  In an argument, one side says something 
and the other comes in and modifies it.  
This process goes on until the two become 
clear about what they want.  Afterwards 
they don't know whatthe argument was 
about, because if they'd  have looked, the 
answer was there from the beginning.  Until 
the people look across the street and see 
what they want, the argument will go on.


  With psychological problems, the only way 
that the part of you that says you're sick 
can win the argument is if it can make it 
blatantly obvious.  The more you resist, the 
crazier you get is how the pattern works, 
until you break down and say to yourself 
"All right! All right! I'm crazy as a loon!"  The 
other side collapses under the load.  The 
part of you that wants to demonstrate how 
crazy you are is the emotional side, which 
people instinctively feel is right on the dark 
edge of the abyss.  The part of you that 
wants to demonstrate that there is really 
nothing seriously wrong is the mental side.  
When the emotional side has spent itself 
through the admission that you really are 
crazy, then the mental side has calm to 
deal with.


  The inner argument goes on and on and a 
chipping away, a little at a time, showing 
you how sick you are.  It's saying "Look 
how sick you are, you idiot! When are you 
going to get wise!"  It's serving a legitamate 
function.  It's making it unavoidably clear 
that there's something wrong.  When its 
finally made the whole point as an 
emotional experience, it just goes phhhttt.  
It's gone.  Your mind doesn't set up all that 
energy for no reason.  It's trying to do you a 
favor, but you will shake the shake of 
thdamned before you can let go.  But at the 
other end is the golden field.


  When the emotional part has peaked, 
when it has driven you in your own 
experience in consciousness to the point 
where you realize you are completely 
bananas, then the ego dies.  That's the 
emotional side's function.  Then you say 
"Ahh, yes..." and the whole thing is over.  
You are no longer the same person.  You 
no longer live in the same reality.  It will 
take awhile before you realize some of the 
differences.  You no longer strive to be like 
the people you have been unknowingly 
striving to be like.  You look at people and 
realize that every one of them is wacky.  It's 
an entirely different reality.  The argument 
is gone.  Both sides die and you become a 
new third person.  You are back to 
spontaneity versus constantly planning.  
You are back to where you started with the 
exception of knowing how you got there.


  What finally happens is that you realize 
everyone is messed up, so what the heck.  
But only after it has driven you through the 
agony of response and ego death.  You say 
to yourself:  "Every ounce of my energy, 
every second of my consciousness, is 
caught up in this %$&#$! thing!  I just can't 
stand it anymore!"  It'll work you until you 
drop.


   When it occurs to you that you have 
psychological problems, the first reaction 
that happens is "What did I do wrong?" 
That's why your ego fights it for so long, 
because you paint it on yourself.  You 
blame it on yourself, and you go through a 
whole round robin until you come to the 
point where you say, "Wait a minute here 
Jack.  Where is the baby that can change 
its own diaper?  Where's the infant that can 
form its own mind?  Somebody messed me 
over!"  Before you know anything about 
how they did it, know that they did it.


   The question is not really whether you did 
something wrong, but did you learn 
something?  That's all.  The worst parental 
attitude is the same as that of the Catholic 
Church, that you are ipso facto wrong, that 
there is nothing right about you, and that 
you couldn't do anything right except 
occasionally by accident.  The business of 
your mind getting going on that "something 
is wrong" can be a blind alley.  I'm not 
saying it always is.


   You cannot do anything, this side of total 
insanity, that comes to you as being a 
wrong action that is not some form of 
hostility.  You cannot have a hostile 
reaction without a cause.  The cause is 
always not being understood when you 
wanted to be.  It is not having the 
opportunity to talk to someone about what 
was on your mind, and be understood.  
When you talk about cause and effect 
chains, I will make the claim that there can 
never be anything that comes to guilt that 
did not start as loneliness.  As a result I quit 
dealing with guilt altogether.  I went back to 
the loneliness and dealt with that, and the 
guilt just           doesn't exist.   It evaporates.  
Guilt is one of those traps.  Loneliness is 
something that always afflicts those with 
high IQs.  They have nobody that takes as 
obvious the things they take as obvious.  
They are bound into higher concepts.


   If you are into working on consciousness, 
into seeking to unlock the hidden 
resources, you aren't going to find much 
company.  Let's hope you find enough 
company.  The average person is so 
frightened of these things that if he ever 
gets an insight into them, he will run away 
and never come back.  I really think it takes 
a conscious effort to stay away from inner 
study.  Instinctively people know that they 
have the same problems and questions, but 
a little less of it.  They can play the game of 
"stay away," and they stay away as long as 
they can, just the same as you or the same 
as I did.  "Why" is because it is more 
important to get your face fixed than to get 
your head fixed.  There's nothing more 
difficult that this work, but if you want to 
know what it is like to feel like a giant, wait 
until you get to the other side of this 
mountain.


   I never saw anyone that didn't take this 
inner conflict down to the last agonizing 
grunt.  Until you are prostrate and totally 
without energy to fight it, you can't let it 
overcome you.  And until you can let it 
overcome you, you can't be set free.  To 
have any choice about the matter is almost 
impossible.  If you have the opportunity to 
let it loose, don't deny yourself the 
opportunity.


   If something is serious enough that it 
keeps coming to the surface, sooner or 
later it will come to the point of you using all 
your energy to try to keep away from it.  My 
doctor used to be the automobile.  I drove 
hundreds of thousands of miles.  It gives 
the outer mind just enough to do that it 
allows the inner mind to come up for some 
air.  Whatever is trying to get to the surface, 
don't be startled by its first form.  What it 
really is, is likely an eternity away from what 
you think it is.  I never saw anyone who 
wasn't brought to a crossroads before they 
achieved insight.  I just wish I knew why it is 
this way.  Until you are total wreckage you 
can't get saved.  That upsets me.


   The first thing that comes to your mind 
when you finally have to let go, is that it is 
the end of your world.  You think your mind 
is going to run amuck and they're going to 
find you running down the middle of the 
street babbling at the moon.  The first time 
it happened to me I only ended laying down 
face first in my roon for about twenty 
minutes.  It was the rage to live.  'To be 
alive, to know, to feel, to love, to be.


-----------------------------------


 
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